Yuletide felicitations from the Aston area.
With Christmas fast approaching it’s only natural that the Villa marketing, commercial and hospitality department should be coming up with more ways to be separated from your money, and in all the excitement of winning the first day of the Warehouse went unnoticed. By all accounts it was okay, nothing spectacular yet but at least the doors were open, the lights were on and they were serving, which at the Villa hasn’t always been a given.
Evann Guessand finally catches the plane to AFCON, where he’ll either not play or get injured. You can guess which it’ll be.
The Random Transfer Generator (January Transfer Window) throws out “Morgan Rogers”, “Chelsea” and “£120 million”. Look who we just happen to be playing at the weekend.
There’s certainly big news coming with regards to the upcoming Enormodrome Stadium, centrepiece of the World Domination Quarter. They’ve said who’s going to draw the plans for the Galacticos Training Complex.
If you’re of a certain age and want to feel even older, Christmas Eve is the fiftieth anniversary of signing Dennis Mortimer. That’s half a century.
Boxing Day is also the fiftieth anniversary of beating West Ham 4-0, which may have been the last time 50,000 Villa supporters were in the ground, so far. Time flies.
Having no Boxing Day fixtures scheduled was another blow for tradition, but at least it made getting to Stamford Bridge a bit easier although these things are all relative. It was more or less the usual line-up, with Ollie Watkins on the bench. The team didn’t make a good start and Chelsea had a couple of chances before a scramble/fluke from a corner put them a goal up at half-time.
Then came the break and the opportunity for Unai to show once more just how much of a miracle worker he is. On came three subs, in went two goals. The first was not long after the sort of defence-to-attack we specialise in, with Boubacar Kamara’s chance saved, then Morgan Rogers put Watkins through for the equaliser. Villa were in total control after that and Youri Tielemans’ corner was met perfectly by Watkins for the winner.
The first half was one of our worst performances this season, the second half was one of the best, the reason was obvious. It’s getting to be a matter of routine but there’s no other manager who could have got three points from this match. It equalled a record going back to 1914 and in that time there have been few men who’ve made such a contribution. It was no more than we deserved.
The latest in the Great Harvey Elliott Mystery is that we don’t want to pay £5 million to send him back, so here he stays. If that’s the case then wouldn’t it help to have him on the bench occasionally, even if it’s just to run errands?
